"The Shopping Channel was selling one of those electrolysis hair removal systems," says Jon Steinberg in one of his stand-up routines. "They decided that waxing was the most painful form of hair removal, which surprised me.

"I would have guessed chemotherapy."

Steinberg, a Toronto native, is one of four stand-up comedians headlining this year's Charleston Comedy Festival. His style is dry and understated. He delivers two- and three-liners with few theatrics and an impish grin.

At the Trio Club's Stand-Up Double Feature, Steinberg's wry humor is matched by New Yorker Rory Scovel's more buddy-next-door stories.

Scovel created a delivery like a friend telling drunken recollections about the previous night. "If you sleep with someone who has slept with David Copperfield, that is literally fucking magic," he says. "And odds are, David Copperfield's fucked Kevin Bacon, too. So from me, you've got one degree of separation."

The festival's second stand-up offering, hosted by the Music Farm, features a Charleston favorite and a rising national star: former 96 Wave radio host-turned-Sirius Radio disc jockey Kenny Z shares the stage with Las Vegas-based comic J. Reid.

For visitors to his hometown, Reid offers some advice: "Everyone uses the saying that 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,'" he says in a City Paper interview. "Well, if you get crabs, that will follow you all the way back to Charleston."

Kenny Z, these days a resident New Yorker, is looking forward to a return home: "I plan on stocking up on fireworks," Z tells City Paper. "Nothing is more fun here than setting off an M-80 or six in the middle of Times Square.

"We do it every Easter," says Z, whose most memorable moment was last year's stand-up competition.